Janet Daley was born in America where she began her political life on the Left as an undergraduate at Berkeley. She moved to Britain (and to the Right) in 1965 where she spent nearly twenty years in academic life before becoming a political commentator: all factors that inform her writing on British and American policy and politicians.

Business needs tax cuts. So does everybody else

British retail business, one of the chief drivers of economic growth, is in big trouble. Stephen Robertson, the Director General of the British Retail Consortium makes it luminously clear why this is so: "The reality is," he says, "disposable incomes are down on a year ago and customers are cutting back."

Yes, that puts it pretty neatly. As the saying goes, it isn't rocket science. People have less money to spend ergo they buy fewer (or cheaper) things. As Mr Robertson points out, "Even food sales are suffering as people cut back or switch to cheaper brands." He concludes from that, quite rightly, that "we need the Chancellor to support households and businesses." His particular suggestions are that George Osborne "should scrap the (planned) increases in fuel duty..and reduce the threatened 5.6 per cent business rates rise."

Well, certainly householders would be given some small relief by not having petrol prices made even more exorbitant, but forestalling an increase in one tax is not the same thing as actually putting more spending money into family budgets – which is what retail businesses require if they are to recover. And not hiking up business rates might well save some smaller shops and enterprises from going out of business altogether. But again, there will be no substantial improvement in their prospects until ordinary people see a real increase in their disposable income: they cannot spend money that they do not have.

So the Chancellor needs to cut direct taxation, by raising the thresholds for both standard and higher rate income tax, if he wants to promote actual growth. People will only buy more goods and services if they are permitted to keep more of the money that they earn. The proper solution to the deficit is prosperity which comes from economic activity – real people (not governments) spending real money. Until the government accepts that basic truth, there can be no revival of the retail sector and, thus, no genuine recovery.